Learning it through knowledge alone is doubtful. But if she was willing to modify herself, the technology is there. Voyager had small neck things that let their crew link with the collective.

4. SPOILERS.....

The admonition was meant for synthetic life, but Agnes couldn't figure this out even though it outright asks Synthetic life to summon "them," to protect synthetic life from organics and wipe out organics. Them refers to an alliance of synthetic life "beyond the boundaries of time and space."

A message that was only heard by these synthetics because some organics found it, went mad and started trying to wipe out synthetics. Not the best way to leave a message.

7. Next episode better not be a let down and Picard magically rolls a d20 on diplomatic checks and saves the day, but I am not sure how they can write themselves out of what they have done short of bullshit hand waving, which some TNG episodes did.

It all comes down to how many organics this alliance of synthetics are willing to kill. If they are willing to let the Romulans live if they back down, then a diplomatic solution is possible.

If the Romulans aren't willing to back down, we have two precedents about how willing the Federation is to use force to defend itself once negotiations have failed. A Taste of Armageddon, where Kirk invoked General Order 24* to threaten the devastation of a planets civilization because they wouldn't release a few hostages, and the episode of DS9 where Sisko got the Prophets to wipe out a Dominion fleet.

*I'm unclear if Kirk had much choice. The other General Orders don't give the captain any choice about if they apply and we don't know exactly what GO24 says.

I am starting to think this series is going to try and jump the shark with Picard.

The body that needs a mind transfer - Picard is dying because his body is failing him...
I am imagining this as the series means of having Stewart 'die' so that a new actor can take his place while claiming to be Picard.

Picard in this series has been weak and a shadow of himself to the point I could see that being 'intentional' so that his successor has an easier chance of coming out trying to be the Picard we know. This entire season has felt like a nostalgia trip and they keep suggesting that Picard is on his 'last' tour with his visit to Elrond because he wont be around again.

We have multiple characters hugging it out with Picard and even Seven of Nine was crying at the goodbye... because we all know that Seven and Picard had this kind of relationship... from having just met in this series.

I can't see that happening. The producers know that part of the reason we are watching this series is because of Stewart. Removing him seems like a bad idea if they want people to watch season 2.

Plus, I'm still waiting for them to do something with the borg cube. Uploading him into it, or just wiring him up to it somehow, seems a more likely way for the writers to have Picard survive. One that also introduces a whole range of issues for the next season.

I could see a 'twist' coming where the magical federation of synths turns out to be all bullshit and is an elaborate trap.
Anyone foolish enough to contact them has demonstrated the capability and threat level that results in their complete extermination.

Voyager and Enterprise have already established the Federation survives thanks to their future arcs and we have seen them deploying timeships like the Relativity.
It would be interesting to find out this 'future' Federation 'beyond time and space' is actually the evolution of THE Federation. Resulting the appearance of a future Enterprise.

As for Picard: I fully expect him to die.
Stewart cannot pull the role anymore and this series has firmly established this. The direction of new Trek with the nihilistic and brutal themes is only going to get more stupid having an 90 year old man running around like an action hero who is being dragged around by all the young actors around him.

One of the biggest theories being punted around is these Synths are actually descendants of Lore with the Soong 'son' actually being Lore in disguise.
I am kinda on board with this theory since B4 and Data were brought up but noone seems to have brought up Lore at all even when it would make sense.
The behaviour of Sutra would suit the Lore theme as well.
We have Soji - Data who has an 'Evil' sister - Sutra - Lore.

As for the technology aspect of this episode:
Transwarp = 25 lightyears in 15 miniutes.
Everyone seems to react as if this is 'awesome' - but really... this is actually fantastically slow for Transwarp and even for warp speed seems a bit weak.
Voyager was able to go from Endgame all the way home in an hour at most which would require substantially faster transwarp speeds.

A) Takes around a day to travel from the Cube to Napenthe for the Rios ship.
B) Takes two days for the Romulan fleet to travel from the Cube to the Synth Planet
C) Picard states the entrance and exit to the Synth planet was 25 Light years in 15 miniutes
D) Picard and Co. seem to have been running to a starbase but changed mid-route to go to the transwarp entrance

Romulan ships have usually been slower on the warp speed front across ST so... that could put the cube at 25 - 50 light years distance.

Apparantly the Synths decided to setup home within days journey from everyone and even had a Borg conduit over their heads. The later fact appears to have been unknown since Soji learned about it on the Borg cube.

Cloaking device
Narek decided to use his cloak as a holographic projector... which can apparantly 'fire' at Picard and Co. and be considered a threat - Cloak Decoy can fire weapons that are treated as if they are 'real' without Rios etc. wondering why things are so 'weak'
When Picard and Co. fire back, the decoy acts disabled and they are able to detect the LIFESIGNS of Narek on the decoy - Cloak Decoy can project lifesigns.
All of this can be done while Narek is still cloaked and undetected. - The cloak can project and still work as a cloak.

Overall, this little display of technology makes one wonder how the 'crippled' Romulan Empire is REALLY crippled at all. They are sending 218 ships that should be able to do the same stunt. 218 ships that can potentially double with decoys flying around.
It appears Narek cannot fire while cloaked so... I guess the Scimitar 'ability' was magically lost.

While certainly a threat to a barely defended colony, that's not all that impressive an assault force in a galaxy with Galaxy Class ships, and D'daedrix class Warbirds.

The Borg cube scanner shows us the same image represenation across the entire fleet and we have seen the actual visuals of the fleet assembling outside the cube and in warp.
Between all three scenes, the fleet is made up of the same class of ship and they are all 'warbirds'

If that 200+ Romulan fleet is a good chunk of their military, and they lose it to this 'advanced synthetic' group in a space battle...
that could leave the Romulans open to be invaded and conquered by the Klingons. More or less 'on scheduele'.

Proof of the Romulans involvement, and it being caused by 'insanity tech', could get the Synthetic ban lifted.
Data's memories being in B4 could still get moved to a better body. Thereby restoring him.

5. The super dooper synthetic life looks like metallic space worms. Presumably there are more than just this type, but I was looking forward to seeing how they do against the AQ powers.

6. Riker actually acted ... cool with a grand presence. What?

7. So Picard rolls a 20 on diplomatic check and convinces Souji not to summon the super synthetic life. Meh, got this partially right.

8. No space battle. Fuck this.

9. So if we can just stop the beacon, then the portal the super synths come through gets closed. But wouldn't the super synths know where the beacon came from, and just send some ships there? Like come on.

10. Picard dies and regenerates into a woman.

Ok, I made that last one up to see if anyone was reading. Instead he gets a new body with mortality and minus his neurological condition. Which makes the future from "All good things" different somewhat. Of course that future also had Data so.

11. Data's consciousness is preserved by Maddox and Soong, reconstructed from a small part of his brain. But he wants to die because mortality.

12. The ban on synthetics is lifted.
Of course we still don't know why the Synths rebel in the first place, although I suspect it was the Romulans.

All in all Picard as a series was lacklustre with poor pacing. They teased a pay off (the super synthetics) and they never materialised. The Data dying because of he wanted to experience mortality was so pointless.

Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.

1) I guess Seven of Nine is getting setup for a romance with Rafi... - This can die in a fire almost as much as the semi-teasing of a connection with Rios

2) Incest Brother - They completely tanked any development here and he just vanishes with no explanation. All he does is serve as an exposition dump that is barely even informative because either the show is trying to setup a suspense for a 'future' arc or the more likely... they wanted to fill the screen time with useless shit

3) Incest Sister - They even managed to make the death of this character boring and shit. Seven of Nine kicks her into a bottomless cavern... Oh I wonder if she will come back since we have literally seen her use 'emergency transporters'.
If this death sticks - It is a suitably disgusting and lazy end to a dead character
If this death does not stick - It is even more egregiously stupid and successfully makes everyone idiots

4) Magic Space Flowers - What the actual fuck... this is what amounts to a space battle now. That said, I am at least a little happy the Romulans blasted those things to shreds without any fuss. I was fully expecting the magic space flowers to be doing massive amounts of damage to the Romulans but at least someone got that much right.

5) The Federation Fleet - What should have been an epic moment was completely botched with the lamest copy and paste garbage. Both the Romulans and the Federation fleet are just someone using ctrl+c / v to spam a fleet. No depth of variety or character at all.
They remind me very much of one of the designs from STO... of all the designs to pick... they went with THAT one ?

6) Riker - Well done, you got this mostly right and I actually liked it.

7) Commodore Oh / Romulan Fleet - 218 ships show up and spend fantastic amounts of time doing jack shit even before the 'delaying' bullshit. After committing all those resources... they just happily go home after Soji turns off the magic space beacon. I guess Oh gets to fly away without any fuss after being a spy in the Federation for decades.
I am also amused they dropped the 'treaty of Algeron' in as well. At this point, the Romulan Empire seems to be working just fine... thanks for wasting all that effort to turn them into space refugees when it turns out the Romulans had a fleet and an Empire still operating that can throw down fleets as big as the Federation.

Picard Manuver - This kind of shit is exactly the problem with this show. It seems like someone is obviously bringing up these little tidbits as an attempt to appear like they are paying attention but they consistently keep fucking it up. The Picard Manuver had nothing to do with holographic bullshit.
Instead, Agnes randomly comes up with this shit and then they use that to justify making a magic fleet come out of the palm sized device in her hand.

9) Borg Cube - Fuck you very much for rendering that entire plot arc pointless. What the hell were the Borg even for ?
Why was Soji sent to the Borg cube ?
The Borg Cube was going to try and shoot a ship in orbit while crashed on the ground... that is kinda stupid.

10) Everyone involved in the production of this series should be ashamed of themselves. This entire episode was an utter disaster from start to finish. Any sense of pacing and tension was demolished, what little suspense and payoff they were setting up across the season was pissed away in spectacular fashion.

11) The 'evil' super synths - Are tentacle monsters... because that makes sense and they did nothing. All that build up and suspense... just so they can do fuck all and get the door shut it their face. This is the magic terror that has had Romulan agents killing themselves because of the 'hell' that was to come.
Incidentally, the exposition from Incest Brother was insanely graphic and specific to the point I fully expect the writers REALLY expect THAT to be what the machines do.
Because.... a godlike super synth Federation is going to eat organics... what ?

12) Data / Picard - Am I supposed to give a shit or have any emotional attachment after sitting through 10 episodes of garbage and having these characters legacies completely ruined. I would have given them bigger props if they had thrown Q in for a cameo handwave. It would be in character and achieve the result they wanted with Q bridging a relationship between Data and Picard.
Instead, this show just invented immortality via the downloading of people into 'new' bodies. Gee.... I wonder if we will see any development of that epic bombshell.

I liked it, overall. I do think it got a bit of a slow start, but once he got his ship the plot moved along well enough. Loved seeing Seven, I hope she gets that spinoff that's been rumored. Or if not, becomes more of a presence in Season 2.

I also think it ended very well. A Picard Speech to more or less get everyone to calm down, and Starfleet ultimately stepped up to the plate as they should, so hopefully all that nonsense of "grimderp Trek" will go away. The Federation may have stumbled a bit, but they did the right thing in the end.

"How can I wait unknowing?
This is the price of war,
We rise with noble intentions,
And we risk all that is pure..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, Forever (Rome: Total War)

"On and on, through the years,
The war continues on..." - Angela & Jeff van Dyck, We Are All One (Medieval 2: Total War)

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon
"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

Some thoughts:
- It seems that Federation ships are faster than Romulans, as they managed to close most of the Romulans headstart in getting there.
- Riker just leaving after Picard says he can handle it feels odd. Picard is a civilian and there is nothing stopping the Romulans turning around in half an hour and glassing the planet as planned.
- The synthetics just got a borg cube and a population of XBs that they have to live with. While others want the borg tech. That sounds like a messy situation.
- How much of that cube was below the planets surface ?

1. Romulans and Vulcans came to Vulcan? What? And the ancient legends of the apocalypse predated their arrival to Vulcan. Mmmkay.

How many human cultures have a legend of arriving from somewhere else ?

Add in cultural drift over millennia and I can see a story about travelling across Vulcan morphing to one about travelling across the stars. Especially since the Romulans did that.

Plus it's a legend. It doesn't have to be true, just believed.

So if we can just stop the beacon, then the portal the super synths come through gets closed. But wouldn't the super synths know where the beacon came from, and just send some ships there? Like come on.

Sure. But that's a problem for later. Question is: What do those super synths want ?

If they wanted to exterminate organics, they could have done so already. If they want to protect synths, then things get interesting when they show up again. But that still assumes that the message in the Admonishment was honest.

Data's consciousness is preserved by Maddox and Soong, reconstructed from a small part of his brain. But he wants to die because mortality.

A big part of Data from TNG is him wanting to be more human. Wanting to die instead of being trapped, alone, in that simulation seems consistent.

The Federation Fleet - What should have been an epic moment was completely botched with the lamest copy and paste garbage. Both the Romulans and the Federation fleet are just someone using ctrl+c / v to spam a fleet. No depth of variety or character at all.

The climatic fights of Picard and Discovery season two both had this problem. Someone decided to spam out ships just because CGI lets them do it easily.

I am also amused they dropped the 'treaty of Algeron' in as well. At this point, the Romulan Empire seems to be working just fine... thanks for wasting all that effort to turn them into space refugees when it turns out the Romulans had a fleet and an Empire still operating that can throw down fleets as big as the Federation.

They needed to give some reason for the Federation to claim the right to intervene. Namedropping that treaty showed that the Federation got something when they signed the treaty that banned cloaks

As for the big fleets, the Romulans had a big headstart in organising their fleet and getting to the planet. The Federation caught up with them with a fleet of a similar size that they put together in a hurry.

How many human cultures have a legend of arriving from somewhere else ?

Add in cultural drift over millennia and I can see a story about travelling across Vulcan morphing to one about travelling across the stars. Especially since the Romulans did that.

Plus it's a legend. It doesn't have to be true, just believed.

In Star Trek we actually know that all the major races were seeded by a precursor race, and that's why they're all humanoid with funny foreheads and all biologically compatible with minimal to no medical help, and so in that sense they did "arrive" at Vulcan from somewhere else. We don't know how far along each race was when they were seeded, they could have been primitive but just advanced enough to generate a legend.

How many human cultures have a legend of arriving from somewhere else ?

Add in cultural drift over millennia and I can see a story about travelling across Vulcan morphing to one about travelling across the stars. Especially since the Romulans did that.

Plus it's a legend. It doesn't have to be true, just believed.

I rewatched the scene, but my interpretation of Incest Twin's statement is that stories of the apocalypse to be legend, but the claims about Romulans and Vulcans coming to be Vulcan to be fact. Especially when both Romulans (Incest Twin and male Bene Geserit) argue whether the apocalypse is historical fact vs legend, while they don't dispute the claim that Romulans / Vulcans came from another world to Vulcan.

Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.

- Riker just leaving after Picard says he can handle it feels odd. Picard is a civilian and there is nothing stopping the Romulans turning around in half an hour and glassing the planet as planned.

War with the Federation is stopping the Romulans here. That's an official protectorate planet, just like Bajor was with the Federation. The Cardassians couldn't come in and invade until Bajor told them to get out. And the Romulans can't invade the Synths until they say that they are no longer under Federation protection.

How many human cultures have a legend of arriving from somewhere else ?

Add in cultural drift over millennia and I can see a story about travelling across Vulcan morphing to one about travelling across the stars. Especially since the Romulans did that.

Plus it's a legend. It doesn't have to be true, just believed.

In Star Trek we actually know that all the major races were seeded by a precursor race, and that's why they're all humanoid with funny foreheads and all biologically compatible with minimal to no medical help, and so in that sense they did "arrive" at Vulcan from somewhere else. We don't know how far along each race was when they were seeded, they could have been primitive but just advanced enough to generate a legend.

Also, the Preservers spreading cultures of said races out amongst numerous planets. It's possible that the pre-Vulcan/Romulans remember that.
It's also possible time travel is involved.